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I just wanted to throw my support behind Adele on the immersion breaking with your own character thing...

Saying that people that don't like the Dragon scene are 'homophobic' in this thread is really off base. As a homosexual male myself, I found that scene tasteless and it certainly ripped me out of the game. When I play MMO's, I am usually never presented with a romantic/sexual scenario. I usually play with the mindset of how I would play in those scenarios, and so when I saw my character being seduced by this woman, my first thought was "WTF, I don't even get a CHOICE?"

The way that whole scene was shot, with her sitting on my chest and having her lower her head to my off-camera crotch was really, really crass. This is a whole different debate, but sexuality CAN be used relatively well in video games (ie. Catherine) but this smelled much more like heterosexual male pandering (ie Fear Effect). In the end, it was jarring to have control torn away from our characters during a scene that seemed very important to setting up who WE are as players.

You (and many others) really missed the point of that scene.

1.) What we see in the dragon intro (and the other ones, too) are initiation rites. They're performed in three different ways and produce the dream/hallucination of the Tokyo Flashback (the subway dungeon tutorial). First way is the Dragons, performing sexual interaction, then the Illuminati, forcing drugs on you and the Templars use a kind of hypnosis/meditation. These three ways are described in the books belonging to the Cthulhu-myth (not only H. P. Lovecraft, but also the Illuminatus! trilogy and other books) and they were also used by real world cults and tribes.

2.) You're complaining about a lack of control. That's right. You are not in control. In TSW, you're not the hero or something, you're just a small part of the secret organisations, not in charge of anything. In the Illuminati intro there's a very important sentence which describes it all. "Find us, or we'll find you." You really have no choice.

The Dragon intro is lacking a bit when it comes to make this clear. But also there's a different mindset needed for playing TSW. In most other MMO's you're "in charge", you're the big hero and everyone's happy to see you. In TSW, this is not the case. You're not anyone special, you're just a person which happens to have some magic powers and the factions use you to fulfill their higher goals. And that's something where TSW is quite good in to show you and very close to the literary it's inspired by.

Thank you so much. It's amazing how much people seem to be ignoring the importance of initiation. In fact, all of the New England region of the game is a partial-initiation into your factions, for them to see just how useful you really are to them.

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everyone talking about "mature" here, but you cry over some little romance that has been "forced" on you? (sounds abit extreme, but that was the term that was used i think hehe)

i wonder how you raged over the duke *G*

it's a game, that first char we met surely was not unimportant, but since this isnt the dating world, i dont think it'S a major concern in the story or conflict in the game ^^

maybe you missunderstood the game abit... just wondering

Forced "romance" is usually called rape.

They way it's done in the other factions is fine, it's also understandable once you play more of the game too like many people have mentioned onceyou figure out the lore it makes more sense.

The problem is that it happens at a point when most people that play the game won't be aware of the lore so it just looks like your character gets forced to have oral sex with this woman. It happens just after you get all these tools to create your character, you feel instantly attached to it because you just created it and the first thing the game does is force you in to a sex scene.

I am not a prude but if you can't understand why that is awkward then there is no point explaining it further.

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everyone talking about "mature" here, but you cry over some little romance that has been "forced" on you? (sounds abit extreme, but that was the term that was used i think hehe)

i wonder how you raged over the duke *G*

it's a game, that first char we met surely was not unimportant, but since this isnt the dating world, i dont think it'S a major concern in the story or conflict in the game ^^

maybe you missunderstood the game abit... just wondering

Forced "romance" is usually called rape.

They way it's done in the other factions is fine, it's also understandable once you play more of the game too like many people have mentioned onceyou figure out the lore it makes more sense.

The problem is that it happens at a point when most people that play the game won't be aware of the lore so it just looks like your character gets forced to have oral sex with this woman. It happens just after you get all these tools to create your character, you feel instantly attached to it because you just created it and the first thing the game does is force you in to a sex scene.

I am not a prude but if you can't understand why that is awkward then there is no point explaining it further.

lol

IT IS A DIGITAL REPRESENTATION OF SOMEONE ELSE (in my case someone far better looking, MMOs dont do middle aged spread) HAVING A VIRTUAL ACT PERFORMED ON THEM BY ANOTHER VIRTUAL CHARACTER IN A UNIVERSE WHERE THE GREAT OLD ONES EXIST AND YOU GET MAGIC POWERS FROM EATING A BEE

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everyone talking about "mature" here, but you cry over some little romance that has been "forced" on you? (sounds abit extreme, but that was the term that was used i think hehe)

i wonder how you raged over the duke *G*

it's a game, that first char we met surely was not unimportant, but since this isnt the dating world, i dont think it'S a major concern in the story or conflict in the game ^^

maybe you missunderstood the game abit... just wondering

Forced "romance" is usually called rape.

They way it's done in the other factions is fine, it's also understandable once you play more of the game too like many people have mentioned onceyou figure out the lore it makes more sense.

The problem is that it happens at a point when most people that play the game won't be aware of the lore so it just looks like your character gets forced to have oral sex with this woman. It happens just after you get all these tools to create your character, you feel instantly attached to it because you just created it and the first thing the game does is force you in to a sex scene.

I am not a prude but if you can't understand why that is awkward then there is no point explaining it further.

lol

IT IS A DIGITAL REPRESENTATION OF SOMEONE ELSE (in my case someone far better looking, MMOs dont do middle aged spread) HAVING A VIRTUAL ACT PERFORMED ON THEM BY ANOTHER VIRTUAL CHARACTER IN A UNIVERSE WHERE THE GREAT OLD ONES EXIST AND YOU GET MAGIC POWERS FROM EATING A BEE

jebus get a frikin life.

Thanks for shouting, I have a life, I am just pointing out why people find it awkward, but you don't want to listen do you?

Personally I will choose another faction because of this, no game has done any sex related scene well so far and this is no exception.

everyone talking about "mature" here, but you cry over some little romance that has been "forced" on you? (sounds abit extreme, but that was the term that was used i think hehe)

i wonder how you raged over the duke *G*

it's a game, that first char we met surely was not unimportant, but since this isnt the dating world, i dont think it'S a major concern in the story or conflict in the game ^^

maybe you missunderstood the game abit... just wondering

Forced "romance" is usually called rape.

They way it's done in the other factions is fine, it's also understandable once you play more of the game too like many people have mentioned onceyou figure out the lore it makes more sense.

The problem is that it happens at a point when most people that play the game won't be aware of the lore so it just looks like your character gets forced to have oral sex with this woman. It happens just after you get all these tools to create your character, you feel instantly attached to it because you just created it and the first thing the game does is force you in to a sex scene.

I am not a prude but if you can't understand why that is awkward then there is no point explaining it further.

lol

IT IS A DIGITAL REPRESENTATION OF SOMEONE ELSE (in my case someone far better looking, MMOs dont do middle aged spread) HAVING A VIRTUAL ACT PERFORMED ON THEM BY ANOTHER VIRTUAL CHARACTER IN A UNIVERSE WHERE THE GREAT OLD ONES EXIST AND YOU GET MAGIC POWERS FROM EATING A BEE

jebus get a frikin life.

Thanks for shouting, I have a life, I am just pointing out why people find it awkward, but you don't want to listen do you?

Personally I will choose another faction because of this, no game has done any sex related scene well so far and this is no exception.

you are the one equating a sexual act between two consenting sets of pixels, neither of which is either, a) real or, b) yourself personally, to something as serious as rape.

and no you dont have a life if you think a collection of dots on a screen is your actual self or you freak out at a fairly mild representation of possible oral sex.

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I just wanted to throw my support behind Adele on the immersion breaking with your own character thing...

Saying that people that don't like the Dragon scene are 'homophobic' in this thread is really off base. As a homosexual male myself, I found that scene tasteless and it certainly ripped me out of the game. When I play MMO's, I am usually never presented with a romantic/sexual scenario. I usually play with the mindset of how I would play in those scenarios, and so when I saw my character being seduced by this woman, my first thought was "WTF, I don't even get a CHOICE?"

The way that whole scene was shot, with her sitting on my chest and having her lower her head to my off-camera crotch was really, really crass. This is a whole different debate, but sexuality CAN be used relatively well in video games (ie. Catherine) but this smelled much more like heterosexual male pandering (ie Fear Effect). In the end, it was jarring to have control torn away from our characters during a scene that seemed very important to setting up who WE are as players.

You (and many others) really missed the point of that scene.

1.) What we see in the dragon intro (and the other ones, too) are initiation rites. They're performed in three different ways and produce the dream/hallucination of the Tokyo Flashback (the subway dungeon tutorial). First way is the Dragons, performing sexual interaction, then the Illuminati, forcing drugs on you and the Templars use a kind of hypnosis/meditation. These three ways are described in the books belonging to the Cthulhu-myth (not only H. P. Lovecraft, but also the Illuminatus! trilogy and other books) and they were also used by real world cults and tribes.

2.) You're complaining about a lack of control. That's right. You are not in control. In TSW, you're not the hero or something, you're just a small part of the secret organisations, not in charge of anything. In the Illuminati intro there's a very important sentence which describes it all. "Find us, or we'll find you." You really have no choice.

The Dragon intro is lacking a bit when it comes to make this clear. But also there's a different mindset needed for playing TSW. In most other MMO's you're "in charge", you're the big hero and everyone's happy to see you. In TSW, this is not the case. You're not anyone special, you're just a person which happens to have some magic powers and the factions use you to fulfill their higher goals. And that's something where TSW is quite good in to show you and very close to the literary it's inspired by.

And I can concede to your replies on my earlier points. However, you have to realize that many of us will feel bothered by this for many reasons.

-Some of us went into this game not doing a lot of research about it beforehand. MANY gamers do the same. "Oh, I've heard a lot about this game, I should give it a shot!" If they make the mistake of choosing Dragon, they may be just as turned off of the entire game as many of us have. I've seen the intros of the other factions, and it wasn't nearly as bad. If I NEED to know what is going on to me and my character by reading and researching things not in the game, isn't that bad design?

-While seduction is a fair use of 'manipulation', you have to understand that women and gay men will be thoroughly thrown out of immersion of the game when stuff like this happens to them. You might not understand, but it's a bigger deal in an MMO or western RPG where many of us enjoy playing through these games as we would behave in the same situations.

-People shouldn't have to go through every faction's intro to understand what is going on in each intro... Just because I chose The Dragons as my faction, shouldn't mean that I am at a loss as to what the hell just happened to me. Right?

-The point isn't that I want to be in charge of everything, but that I was playing in my own perspective and something happened that felt COMPLETELY out of character. If it was an event that clearly felt like an unavoidable spell put on me, I wouldn't have minded as much... For an example, I'm sure many people would be much less turned off of the Dragon intro if both the male and female demons were both seducing each character. (If you, as a straight male just thought 'bleh' at the thought of a dude seducing you, think of how the female players feel...) Add to that some obvious spell effects (turn my eyes a different color, put a cloudy, sparkly haze around my head and both demons' heads as well. More clear indicators as to what the hell is going on.

I get your points, I do. But you have to understand that many of us have NOT been following every bit of info and lore about this game, and thought it would be a fun, different game to try out. And then became immediately turned off by the Dragon intro. (not to mention the poor animation...)

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I just wanted to throw my support behind Adele on the immersion breaking with your own character thing...

Saying that people that don't like the Dragon scene are 'homophobic' in this thread is really off base. As a homosexual male myself, I found that scene tasteless and it certainly ripped me out of the game. When I play MMO's, I am usually never presented with a romantic/sexual scenario. I usually play with the mindset of how I would play in those scenarios, and so when I saw my character being seduced by this woman, my first thought was "WTF, I don't even get a CHOICE?"

The way that whole scene was shot, with her sitting on my chest and having her lower her head to my off-camera crotch was really, really crass. This is a whole different debate, but sexuality CAN be used relatively well in video games (ie. Catherine) but this smelled much more like heterosexual male pandering (ie Fear Effect). In the end, it was jarring to have control torn away from our characters during a scene that seemed very important to setting up who WE are as players.

You (and many others) really missed the point of that scene.

1.) What we see in the dragon intro (and the other ones, too) are initiation rites. They're performed in three different ways and produce the dream/hallucination of the Tokyo Flashback (the subway dungeon tutorial). First way is the Dragons, performing sexual interaction, then the Illuminati, forcing drugs on you and the Templars use a kind of hypnosis/meditation. These three ways are described in the books belonging to the Cthulhu-myth (not only H. P. Lovecraft, but also the Illuminatus! trilogy and other books) and they were also used by real world cults and tribes.

2.) You're complaining about a lack of control. That's right. You are not in control. In TSW, you're not the hero or something, you're just a small part of the secret organisations, not in charge of anything. In the Illuminati intro there's a very important sentence which describes it all. "Find us, or we'll find you." You really have no choice.

The Dragon intro is lacking a bit when it comes to make this clear. But also there's a different mindset needed for playing TSW. In most other MMO's you're "in charge", you're the big hero and everyone's happy to see you. In TSW, this is not the case. You're not anyone special, you're just a person which happens to have some magic powers and the factions use you to fulfill their higher goals. And that's something where TSW is quite good in to show you and very close to the literary it's inspired by.

And I can concede to your replies on my earlier points. However, you have to realize that many of us will feel bothered by this for many reasons.

-Some of us went into this game not doing a lot of research about it beforehand. MANY gamers do the same. "Oh, I've heard a lot about this game, I should give it a shot!" If they make the mistake of choosing Dragon, they may be just as turned off of the entire game as many of us have. I've seen the intros of the other factions, and it wasn't nearly as bad. If I NEED to know what is going on to me and my character by reading and researching things not in the game, isn't that bad design?

-While seduction is a fair use of 'manipulation', you have to understand that women and gay men will be thoroughly thrown out of immersion of the game when stuff like this happens to them. You might not understand, but it's a bigger deal in an MMO or western RPG where many of us enjoy playing through these games as we would behave in the same situations.

-People shouldn't have to go through every faction's intro to understand what is going on in each intro... Just because I chose The Dragons as my faction, shouldn't mean that I am at a loss as to what the hell just happened to me. Right?

-The point isn't that I want to be in charge of everything, but that I was playing in my own perspective and something happened that felt COMPLETELY out of character. If it was an event that clearly felt like an unavoidable spell put on me, I wouldn't have minded as much... For an example, I'm sure many people would be much less turned off of the Dragon intro if both the male and female demons were both seducing each character. (If you, as a straight male just thought 'bleh' at the thought of a dude seducing you, think of how the female players feel...) Add to that some obvious spell effects (turn my eyes a different color, put a cloudy, sparkly haze around my head and both demons' heads as well. More clear indicators as to what the hell is going on.

I get your points, I do. But you have to understand that many of us have NOT been following every bit of info and lore about this game, and thought it would be a fun, different game to try out. And then became immediately turned off by the Dragon intro. (not to mention the poor animation...)

A few points I wanna make.

1)The Illuminati chip you without permission. Again, they chip and drug you without permission. This is pretty damn intrusive. The Templar are the only 'morally upright' faction (even though they have their own MAJOR issues), but its not just the Dragon that do crazy shiz.

2)It's your fault you didn't research what you bought? This is a game about secret societies. They don't tend to be nice friendly folks. Maybe on the surface, but that's..on the surface.

3)Yes you should be at a loss in the intro. It's called a mystery. My god.

4)I'm a gay male and I played a female character as Dragon and I didn't give a damn. It's a story. If I was playing a male and it was a female seducing my character, I still wouldn't give a damn. Because it has quite awesome lore justification behind it.

Just as I don't give a damn that the Templar gets hypnotized. Whaaa, I couldn't control that?!? No, I couldn't. It was hypnotism. Yes, the factions are bastards. That's pretty clear by now. They all do these crazy things for some form of the greater good.

I am in support of some visual indicator, however small, that it is a spell being put on you though. That's not a bad idea. I don't want a huge spell effect though, as I do feel that takes away from the positive parts that ARE in that scene (like her words - which basically describe Dragon philosophy).

The poor animation is just gonna happen in a game with so many cutscenes and other gameplay aspects for devs to pay attention to. I personally forgave this part of TOR (even if overall design annoyed the hell out of me), and will in TSW as well, as long as they show effort in the next 2 weeks and into post-launch on polishing things up more.

everyone talking about "mature" here, but you cry over some little romance that has been "forced" on you? (sounds abit extreme, but that was the term that was used i think hehe)

i wonder how you raged over the duke *G*

it's a game, that first char we met surely was not unimportant, but since this isnt the dating world, i dont think it'S a major concern in the story or conflict in the game ^^

maybe you missunderstood the game abit... just wondering

Forced "romance" is usually called rape.

They way it's done in the other factions is fine, it's also understandable once you play more of the game too like many people have mentioned onceyou figure out the lore it makes more sense.

The problem is that it happens at a point when most people that play the game won't be aware of the lore so it just looks like your character gets forced to have oral sex with this woman. It happens just after you get all these tools to create your character, you feel instantly attached to it because you just created it and the first thing the game does is force you in to a sex scene.

I am not a prude but if you can't understand why that is awkward then there is no point explaining it further.

lol

IT IS A DIGITAL REPRESENTATION OF SOMEONE ELSE (in my case someone far better looking, MMOs dont do middle aged spread) HAVING A VIRTUAL ACT PERFORMED ON THEM BY ANOTHER VIRTUAL CHARACTER IN A UNIVERSE WHERE THE GREAT OLD ONES EXIST AND YOU GET MAGIC POWERS FROM EATING A BEE

jebus get a frikin life.

Thanks for shouting, I have a life, I am just pointing out why people find it awkward, but you don't want to listen do you?

Personally I will choose another faction because of this, no game has done any sex related scene well so far and this is no exception.

you are the one equating a sexual act between two consenting sets of pixels, neither of which is either, a) real or, b) yourself personally, to something as serious as rape.

and no you dont have a life if you think a collection of dots on a screen is your actual self or you freak out at a fairly mild representation of possible oral sex.

JEEEEEZ! I am not saying it is a rape scene, the way that guy i quoted typed it, made it sound like rape, I even highlighted it, he said "cry over some romance that has been forced on you" I jokingly said that forced romance is usually called rape.

Calling it romance is as much a joke as calling it rape. It's a sex scene and nothing else.

I don't have to justify my life to you, if you think my biggest worry in life is that people in a game are having sex then you are way off base. It is not a consensual sex scene either as the player character has no say in whether it happens or not.

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Regarding the opening Dragon scene, you know that if that character, fey, demon or whatever even -appeared- to be male and went down on any player character regardless of gender there would be such outrage that TSW's forums would probably have to shut down and there'd be articles deriding the game from every single straight male blogger who ever thought he may once have considered possibly playing the game.

Putting that into perspective, maybe some folks saying that the situation as it is makes them uncomfortable should be respected.

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Originally posted by GreenGlass

Regarding the opening Dragon scene, you know that if that character, fey, demon or whatever even -appeared- to be male and went down on any player character regardless of gender there would be such outrage that TSW's forums would probably have to shut down and there'd be articles deriding the game from every single straight male blogger who ever thought he may once have considered possibly playing the game.

Putting that into perspective, maybe some folks saying that the situation as it is makes them uncomfortable should be respected.

+1 and as a templar I didnt get hypnotized a radioactive bee flew in my mouth and next thing you know Im one of those kids from immortals.

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Some of the comments left in that thread are really a demonstration of why developpers should never give any western players access to their game betatest.

As much as I didn't like TSW, I would like to try ArcheAge but can't... After 5 years during which our community has used betas not to test and help games to progress, but to decide whether or not its a good demo version, we have lost our rights to access new games before the asian market. I wouldn't be surprised if NA was becoming in the next few years the last market in the world to get their access to the last mmorpg, 1-2 years after everyone else. Sad :/

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OP fails on one single point that he didn't notice just yet, it's public beta. It's not polished and it's intentionally that way. If you consider yourself experienced gamer you should know by now no to judge the game by open beta, as those are old builds custom tailored just for open beta, not anything else. I seriously doubt that this game will be so crude at launch, and now that NDA on closed beta is lifted we got some serious reviews not made by gaming journalists hyping or not hyping the game.

I'm not sure what ppl waiting for GW2 are doing playing TSW as those 2 games are complete opposites of each other and have absolutely nothing in common (well appart from the MMORPG tag). They are deliberately made that way in order to cater to different publics and I think those 2 are mutually exclusive, hence the 2 games, not 1 quitting after finding out the other is going to be made. Please don't mix opposites, it just doesn't make ANY sense at all.

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Originally posted by SlickShoes

JEEEEEZ! I am not saying it is a rape scene, the way that guy i quoted typed it, made it sound like rape, I even highlighted it, he said "cry over some romance that has been forced on you" I jokingly said that forced romance is usually called rape.

Calling it romance is as much a joke as calling it rape. It's a sex scene and nothing else.

I don't have to justify my life to you, if you think my biggest worry in life is that people in a game are having sex then you are way off base. It is not a consensual sex scene either as the player character has no say in whether it happens or not.

Wow, this thing is going wild. Just to add more fire, at that point it's still NPC, you get your PC after that. :)

And seriously, who cares, it's intro movie. Dragons represent CHAOS, what did you guys expect, nice pat on the shoulder?

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Originally posted by HerX

Originally posted by SlickShoes

JEEEEEZ! I am not saying it is a rape scene, the way that guy i quoted typed it, made it sound like rape, I even highlighted it, he said "cry over some romance that has been forced on you" I jokingly said that forced romance is usually called rape.

Calling it romance is as much a joke as calling it rape. It's a sex scene and nothing else.

I don't have to justify my life to you, if you think my biggest worry in life is that people in a game are having sex then you are way off base. It is not a consensual sex scene either as the player character has no say in whether it happens or not.

Wow, this thing is going wild. Just to add more fire, at that point it's still NPC, you get your PC after that. :)

And seriously, who cares, it's intro movie. Dragons represent CHAOS, what did you guys expect, nice pat on the shoulder?

You get your character before that, you have to run through Seoul to the hotel that this event takes place in.

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I'm to the point now that i just think some of these companies are not going to make everyone happy. Most of the things the OP posted are really just BS. I played the open beta and tsw was nicely done and it was a pretty nice beta weekend. It's amazing how much they put into a game and then watch people that really don't have a clue about mmo's or what it takes to make one just bash the hell out of it on forums. Really i think some people that post here should just stop playing mmo's and do something else, maybe just single player things. They want something new but wait that doesn't feel right to them. They want the standard mmo feel but it just feels the same to them. The world is to big the world is too small, instance, non instance, no wait yes i want that, no i don't, i love it not.

Guild wars 2 will be bashed all to hell this year as well with "oh how i want to love this game but I can't because my hair just doesn't look right on my toon, this game is fail"

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Originally posted by SlickShoes

Originally posted by HerX

Originally posted by SlickShoes

JEEEEEZ! I am not saying it is a rape scene, the way that guy i quoted typed it, made it sound like rape, I even highlighted it, he said "cry over some romance that has been forced on you" I jokingly said that forced romance is usually called rape.

Calling it romance is as much a joke as calling it rape. It's a sex scene and nothing else.

I don't have to justify my life to you, if you think my biggest worry in life is that people in a game are having sex then you are way off base. It is not a consensual sex scene either as the player character has no say in whether it happens or not.

Wow, this thing is going wild. Just to add more fire, at that point it's still NPC, you get your PC after that. :)

And seriously, who cares, it's intro movie. Dragons represent CHAOS, what did you guys expect, nice pat on the shoulder?

You get your character before that, you have to run through Seoul to the hotel that this even takes place in.

Oh, yeah, that's what I get for not spoiling my dragon intro :) I'm saving it for release, but I think my main point is still valid :)